Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 edition. Excerpt: ...before it shines upon the plain. Bulicer Lyiioiu INTELLECT-Vanity of. Man's intellect has indeed great power over all outward things. This we are not disposed to question. In these days more especially we all take far too much pride in it, and make presumptuous boast of it. nay, are apt to fall down and worship it, as tho one great miracle worker, the true mover of mountains. But powerful as it may be, omnipotent as we may deem it to be, over the world around us, over the outward fields of nature, there is one region where our hearts and consciences tell us, sometimes in half-muttered whispers, sometimes in cries of anguish and agony, that it is almost powerless: and that region is the dim, visionary, passion-haunted one within our own breasts. We all know but too well, --every one whose life has not flowed away in listless inanity, --every one who has ever struggled against the evil within him, must have felt but too deeply, that our intellectual convictions, clear and strong as they may have been, have never of themselves been able to shake the foundations of a single sin, to subdue a single vice, to root out a single evil habit. Ever since that severing of the heart from the intellect, which took place when man gave himself up to the lust of godless knowledge, the Passions have made mock at the Understanding, whenever it has attempted to control them, and have only flattered and pampered it, when it was content to wear their livery, and to drudge in their service; whilo the Will has lifted up its head against the Understanding in haughty defiance and scorn. Moreover this lesson, which we learn from our own grievous experience, is confirmed by all tho evidence of history; where, in example after example, we see, how vain and impotent the...show more